The Circuit was thrilled to feature Bob D'Agnillo at the Regional Entrepreneur Forum. Bob shared some methods and techniques to analyze how effective your sales people are going out making sales calls on executives. Let's take a look at how they call on customers and prospects to see if they truly are in alignment with what the buyer wants to discuss with them. You'll find you don't need to always be out there with them to see how effective they are when they have 30-60 minutes with a prospect. We'll dive into why sales people are more comfortable calling on I.T. type individuals rather than the executives that own the critical business issues that are driving certain companies to look at how they need to change the way they do business in today's very difficult economy.

1. How do you know it was a good Sales Call ???
Bob D’Agnillo
December 18, 2009
© Solution Selling, Inc. 2008

2. How do you know how the sales person did after a call today?
 Voicemail to manager?
 CRM entry?
 Internal forms?
 Others? ?
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 1

3. Credit and Copyright Information
Trademark Notice: The following trademarks and service marks are owned or licensed by Solution
Selling, Inc. Any questions concerning the use of these trademarks, whether a name that does not
appear on this list is in fact a trademark of Solution Selling, Inc. or comments concerning this
manual, workshop or presentation should be referred to Solution Selling, Inc. in the United States at
the following address:
4720 Piedmont Row Drive, Suite 400
Charlotte, North Carolina 28210 USA
Phone: 704.227.6500 FAX 704.364.8114
Solution Selling® and Situational Fluency Prompter®, are registered trademarks and service marks of
Solution Selling, Inc. Pain Sheets™, 9 Block Vision Processing Model™, Pain Chains™, Pipeline
Milestone Worksheet™ are trademarks and service marks of Solution Selling, Inc. All other
referenced marks are those of their respective owners.
Copyright Notice: This manual is a copyrighted work of Solution Selling, Inc. This manual may not be
reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Solution Selling, Inc.
© 1985 - 2007 Solution Selling, Inc. - All rights reserved - Confidential
422 MAT
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 2

4. Follow up Letter / e-mail
Dear Steve,
Thank you for arranging the meeting with the executive team at XYZ corporation.
Once again I would like to apologize for the following:
(1) The misunderstanding of the time of the meeting. With you being in Indiana and with all of the changes to the time
zones, it’s easy to see why we were an hour late.
(2) My technical expert is trying to understand why our demo system didn’t work at your location.
(3) My misunderstanding that your company didn’t recognize “dress down” Fridays.
Our next steps
(4) Hopefully you can call the leadership team together again for another try. At that meeting, we’ll show you some
things from our system that YOU NEED. I am confident you will like what you see and introduce our company to the
rest of your organization. I’ll call you on Friday to discuss it further.
Sincerely,
Clyde Cooper
P.S. I am attaching a citation I received from your security department for parking in a handicapped spot. I sent them
an email with a picture showing it wasn’t clearly marked.
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 3

5. Qualification Components:
Potential Sponsor Letter / e-mail 1 Pain
2 Reasons for the Pain
3 Buying Vision
4 Agreement to Explore
5 Bargain for Access to Power
6 Next Steps / Proof Step
Dear Butch,
Thank you for your interest in TNB Card Services. The purpose of this letter (email) is to summarize my
understanding of our meeting and our action plan.
We discussed the following:
(1) Your primary critical business issue is your lack of cardholder and loan balance growth.
(2) The reasons you are having this critical business issue are:
 Your products are not competitive with national issuers and other credit unions
 You lack card expertise and platform flexibility
 Members are unaware of card offerings
(3) The capabilities you said you needed to resolve this situation are:
 The ability to offer the right card that would be competitive in your market
 The ability to offer multiple options of credit line, interest rate, rewards, and fee combinations on one card type
 To have competitive turnkey marketing programs to choose from focused on acquiring new cardholders and
growing balances
Our next steps
(4) You agreed to move forward with our company (5) and said if we succeed in proving we can give you these
capabilities, you will introduce me to Mike Bellotti, VP Lending. You mentioned he/she is not happy with the impact
that your critical business issue is having upon his/her ability to grow high yield loans.
(6) I would like to propose a conversation between you and a Card Manager at another Credit Union who has
converted to TNB Card Services and grown his cardholders and loan balances with our help.
I am confident you will like what you see and introduce our company to the rest of your organization. I’ll call you on
Friday to discuss it further.
Sincerely,
Chris Fowler
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 4

6. Basic Principle
BASIC
PRINCIPLE
NO PAIN, NO CHANGE
Pain = Problem, Critical Business Issue or Potential Missed Opportunity
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 5

7. Basis of Pain
 Increasing
 Costs
 Competitive losses
 Errors
 Customer complaints
 Returns
 Employee turnover
 Eroding
 Profits
 Market share
 Service quality
 Growth rate
? COMMON
DENOMINATOR
 Customer care
 Compliance
 Government regulation
 Industry standard
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 6

8. Getting Pain Admitted
Question Examples
SITUATION QUESTIONS
“Today, when one of your customers wants to place an order on a day their
salesperson is not going to call them, what do they do?”
“Today, how do your customers get notified of new products or promotions?”
“When a prospect calls a salesperson to ask a FAQ, how is that call handled?”
“How do your salespeople get referrals from existing customers today?”
“What bad thing happens because of the situation you described?”
MENU OF PAIN QUESTIONS
“The top three difficulties we are hearing from CIOs these days include:
 Difficulty implementing new technologies
 Inability to meet users' technology demands
 Trouble keeping up with technology change
…are you facing any of these issues today?”
OR
…are you curious how we have helped our customers deal with these
issues?”
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 7

9. Situational Fluency
What Buyers Should Expect from Salespeople
Situational Capability
Knowledge Knowledge
How Do We
Integrate?
People Selling
Skills Skills
Situational Fluency:
Integration of knowledge and skills by the salesperson for “eagle” performance
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 8

10. Conceptual Sales Territory
Of all the people who could benefit from your offering…
What % are actively evaluating?
Not
Looking
Active *
*  Power person driving evaluation
 Business issues defined
 Requirements documented
 Evaluation team in place
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 9

11. Basic Principle: There are Four Levels of Buyer Need
BASIC
PRINCIPLE
Level
Four:
Active
Evaluation
Level Three:
Vision of a
Solution
Level Two: Admitted Pain
Level One: Latent Pain
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 10

12. How Organizations Evaluate and Buy
Not Looking Active Requirements Company A Company B Company C
 
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  
  

 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 11

13. Shifting Buyer Concerns
Buying Phases
Phase I: Phase II: Phase III:
Determine Needs Evaluate Alternatives Evaluate Risk
Risk
Needs
Level of Concern
Cost Price
Needs
Solution
Risk Solution
Time
“Am I paying
“What do “What meets too much?”
I Need?” my needs?” “But what
if……?”
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 12

14. Key Selling Skills
Sales Process Steps
PLAN CREATE QUALIFY DEVELOP PROVE NEGOTIATE CLOSE
Prospecting
Developing Needs
Developing and Delivering Value
Managing Proof
Accessing
Power
Qualifying / Disqualifying
Controlling the Process
Negotiating / Closing
Aligning
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 13

15. Crossing the Chasm
Early Market
- Early Adopters
- Innovators
New Accounts
Late Market
Early Majority
Late Majority
Laggards
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 14

16. Basic Principle
BASIC
PRINCIPLE
YOU CAN’T SELL TO SOMEONE
WHO CAN’T BUY
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 15

17. Approval Types and Roles
Informal: Opportunity Level
 Sponsor
 Cannot make the buying decision
 Provides information
 Conducts internal selling
 Provides access to power
 Power Sponsor (a.k.a. “VP of Change”)
 Enough influence (regardless of title) and authority to get it if they want it, even if unbudgeted
 Can and will take you anywhere in the organization you need to go
 Can and will negotiate the steps leading to a buying decision
 Beneficiary
 Adversary
 End user
Formal: Account Level
 Legal / Technical / Administrative (Purchasing)
 Financial
 Ultimate Authority
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 16

18. Potential Power Sponsor Letter / e-mail Qualification Components:
1 Pain
2 Reasons for the Pain
3 Buying Vision
4 Organizational Impact
5 Agreement to Explore
6 Evaluation Plan Set-up
Dear Mike,
Thank you for meeting with Butch Davis and me earlier today. I believe it was time well spent for both organizations.
We discussed the following:
(1) Your primary critical business issue is lack of high yielding loan growth resulting from an inability to grow
cardholders and loan balances .
(2) The reasons you are having this critical business issue are:
 Your products are not competitive with national issuers and other credit unions
 You lack card expertise and platform flexibility
 Members are unaware of card offerings
(3) The capabilities you said you needed to resolve this situation are:
 The ability to offer the right card that would be competitive in your market
 The ability to offer multiple options of credit line, interest rate, rewards, and fee combinations on one card type
 To have competitive turnkey marketing programs to choose from focused on acquiring new cardholders and
growing balances
(4) You said if you had these capabilities that you could grow high yielding loans, resulting in Urban Meyer (CFO)
increasing ROA, and Pete Carroll (CEO) could grow the membership.
Our next steps
(5) When I told you I was confident that our organization can help you increase high yielding loans, you agreed to
take a serious look at our ability to do so. (6) Based on my knowledge to date, I am suggesting an evaluation plan for
your further exploration of our organization’s capabilities. Look over the plan with Butch and I will call you on Friday
to get your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Chris Fowler
Attachment: Draft Evaluation Plan
www.solutionselling.com © Solution Selling, Inc. • 2007  PAGE 17

19. If you want any follow up:
Bob D’Agnillo
bobd@fuse.net
513-703-664
© Solution Selling, Inc. 2008